Social Fitness

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a young lady that was waiting on my wife and I at a local Applebees. We overheard her say that her husband was military. When she came back to where we were, I asked what her husband did. She told me that he was Security Forces and a K9 handler. She also said that the last several months have been pretty stressful during the Presidential campaign, since his dog was a bomb dog, he got deployed quite a bit to help with clearing event areas where the candidates would be visiting. They have four children all under 10 years old; many times she wasn’t able to work her shift at the restaurant. That particular evening, she was able to work because her mother was visiting and was with the children.  

I wanted to gain further insight on how active duty squadrons were taking care of families. I asked if while he was deployed, did the squadron assign someone as a point of contact if she needed help with anything. She told me that they didn’t, she had little or no contact with her husband’s supervisors. This got me started thinking about how fortunate we are in our Guard family to have proactive leaders who contact the families on a regular basis during deployments.

This conversation makes me wonder if a basic Wingman concept is being missed. When we look at the Wingman concept, it applies to many areas, Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Social. To take a quote from the Air Force Reserve Center Wingman Toolkit, “Life is not static. Relationships and situations never stay the same. We must be cognizant of the impact social fitness has on mission readiness. Relationships with our families, with our friends, among our coworkers and in our communities all affect our ability to be mission ready. If we commit ourselves to staying focused on what really matters, it is easier to overcome unusual challenges and even enhance our resiliency as a total force.” ⁱ Our experiences with our families have a direct impact on our individual readiness. When those concerns from providing for our families spill over, we can’t perform at the level we need to be on the mission.

So what can we do or improve on? In an article I published several months ago, we need to establish and foster relationships. It is in these areas when we know our Wingman well enough, we can detect that something is wrong. We do this by creating opportunities on and off duty to build those relationships. Many times the off duty opportunities we can use to build the relationships among our families. The senior leaders are dedicated to provide these opportunities and we need to take advantage of them.

Some other tips are: being open to change. There’s one thing in life that is sure to happen and that is change.  Having the ability to trust. Learn from our mistakes. Build on our strengths and focus on a purpose.

We should be aware of how we can use the Wingman concept to help our fellow Airmen and their families. To be a resource and support when they need us. Many times we focus on the one on one relationship, but in reality, it’s a one to many relationship. What is your social mission readiness?

References:

ⁱ  Citizen Airman, “Supporting Social Fitness,” 12 Aug 2012, Wingman Toolkit, US Air Force Reserve Center, 30 Nov 2012, http://afrc.wingmantoolkit.org/CategoryItems.aspx?Category=Social